About this blog

The journey from John o'Groats to Land's End took place in 14 sections, starting in 1996 (a week or so each year). The idea came to me in 1995 and I completed the British JoGLE Watershed in June 2009.

I was joined by a number of relations and friends from time to time. Most notable among my walking companions were my son Tim (7 sections) and nephews Peter and Jonny.

After walking the first section in 1996 I discovered that Dave Hewitt had already pioneered the Scottish Watershed (to Cape Wrath) in 1987, and had published his excellent account Walking the Watershed in 1994. We have been in touch since then, and he has been a great encouragement.

A simple definition of the watershed is that any rain falling to the left of the path finishes in the North Sea or English Channel, and anything to the right flows into the Atlantic Ocean, the Irish Sea or the Bristol Channel.

I believe that this was the first walk along the full length of the British JoGLE Watershed. I became aware just after I completed the journey that the late Mike Allen walked a slightly different version (from Land's End to Cape Wrath) between 1988 and 1994, so he will have covered the same ground apart from the most north-easterly 220km.

There have subsequently been several walks and publications about parts of the JoGLE watershed, including Peter Wright's 2010 Ribbon of Wildness account of his Scottish section walked in 2005, which has brought the subject of watershed walking in the UK to a wider audience.

I hope you enjoy this blog. I'm planning to publish a full account in 2013/4. A summary of the walk appeared in The Angry Corrie volume 76 in 2009.

Malcolm Wylie.

Saturday 11 August 2007

Day 108 - the famous Street Ash cows

Peter joined my train to Taunton at Reading. We were planning to meet my cousin Mike on the Watershed that evening, for a lift down to his house in Taunton. By chance we bumped into him while we were in transit in Taunton, so he was able to relieve us of some of our unwanted weight.

We took the bus to Chard, found the spot where we'd finished last year, and set off on the Watershed on map 193 at 3pm. The first task was to dispose of 5km on the A30 - not much fun.

After a short section of bridleway we were on narrow country road all the way to our meeting place. As we passed the village of Street Ash, I pointed out to Peter - "oh look, there are the famous Street Ash Cows" - just a joke. This tickled his sense of humour, and we still refer to it several year later; if he forms a band he's thinking of using it as their name.

To relieve the boredom of road-walking, we took a little detour into the wood at Britty Common, where we saw this impressive logging machine.

We met Mike at (Holman Clavel - 222160) just after 7pm, and he drove us down to his home in Taunton for the night.

No comments:

Post a Comment